Telephoto
lenses give the "reach" for the photographer, if you're close to
the action, lenses at normal focal length will give you pictures that show you in
the thick of the activities with normal perspective as what our eyes normally perceives
in seeing. However when involves with quick action, it often makes framing difficult.
For instance, in sports you can concentrate on getting only the most photographic
moment without being bothered by framing but when the action is so quick or when
individual close-ups and the game as a whole are to be shot alternately, as in a
soccer game, using telephotos can sometimes be quite inconvenient. This is where
the Nikkor telephoto zooms come in. In comparison, framing with a zoom lense is always
much easier to handle, and they are also especially suitable if you haven't got elbow
room. Without removing your eye from the viewfinder, you can vary the focal length
from one focal length to another to meet your framing composition. If you think that
a single zoom will amply compensate for a number of lenses of various focal lengths,
you have realized only half of its worth. Its real value is that you can see through
the viewfinder the most effective framing throughout the zooming range without changing
the camera position.

Nikon was not
only the first to design practical zoom lenses for 35mm still photography but also
the first to craft them with acceptable quality and performance.

An advantage
in the design of these original series of Nikkor zooms over its rivalries was, once
you snapped the subject in focus, it will remain in sharp focus throughout their
zoom range to allow you to zoom clearly from far distant scenes to a near view and
vice versa without changing your camera position. Although this might sound too common
to you but during those early days, many users were quite receptive to use zoom lenses
but eventually, the acceptance of zoom lenses in both their quality and performance
have a lot to do with the untiring effort Nikon put into their research and lens
development which eventually saw birth of a few distinctive Nikkor zooms to change
general negative perception towards these series of Nikkor. In fact as early as we
can traced back to mid of the sixties, the Company has already offered an array of
zoom lenses covered from medium wideangle to super-telephoto with a total 14-power
zoom range. Among them, one of the most interesting optic is the high power 50-300mm
Nikkor zoom.

Non-Ai
50-300mm f/4.5~f/22 Zoom-Nikkor
Auto

Debuted in 1966. This was the first zoom lense in the world that offers a magnificent
5X zoom ratio. The lens has a two-ring rotating type design with an automatic diaphragm,
a meter coupling prong as well as a rotating tripod mount with loops for a carrying
strap. Like other Nikkor tele-zooms design (see picture below), the early version
also has a metallic silver front ring with the lens data engraving on the outer rim.
A total of nine focal length markings (50, 60, 70, 85, 105, 135, 200, 250 and 300mm)
are printed on the zoom rotating ring.

This zoom lense
covers the most frequently used focal lengths from 50mm (normal) to 300mm (telephoto).
The introduction of this lense did caused a sensation in the photographic community
as its extraordinary 6X zooming ratio makes it the most versatile zoom lens designed
for still cameras. Its ingenious lens design helps maintain quite an outstanding
resolution, high contrast images and faithful color rendition throughout its extra-wide
range of focal lengths and chromatic aberrations, generally present at longer focal
lengths, have been well tamed.

Zooming and focusing operations are done with two separate rings. The tripod socket
on a rotatable collar allows the camera to be changed rapidly from vertical to horizontal
picture format or vice versa whenever necessary. All these features make this zoom
lens a favorite for action and sports events and wildlife photography at the time.The lense is only 290mm long despite its maximum focal length of 300mm and the
early version could be having a strating number of 740101. The lense went through
its first round of facelift sometime in 1968 where from here onwards, the customary
silver-coloured front ring as replaced with black finish. Most of the used lenses
surfaced on and off at auction sales were from this version onwards.

The was once a status lense for Nikon to showcase their advancement and capability
in lens design. In no way that the lense was designed for weekend photographers as,
first, at the time of its introduction, it was not a cheap optic and next, despite
it has a highly desirable zoom range, this lens is both massive in size and weight
(weighing almost 2.3kg !) and it can be very demanding for the photographer to carry
around and/or for handheld shooting (probably why the rotating tripod has a loops
for a carrying strap). Its 46° (50mm) to 8°10'(300mm) angle of view can change
a normal shooting scene in quite a dramatic fashion, and when during shooting, it
is always advisable to focus first and make use of the separate zoom ring for framing
and/or composing the shots.

The aperture
ring of the earlier few Pre-Ai version was supplied with an Nikkor design flat but
ridged type. The various aperture scales were not coloured coded yet (as with other
old zoom such as the first wideangle-zoom Zoom-Nikkor 28-45mm).

The crinkle-finished
tripod collar has an interesting design, probably first of the series being deployed
in a Nikkor zoom lense, other than it has two eyelets for a carrying strap, it can
be rotated equipped with click stops at each 90°. This has greatly facilitate
responsive changing of format from horizontal to vertical shooting.

The lens extension from the aperture ring to the tripod collar mount is quite long
(check with the optical construction map below)

The optical
design comprises of a very complex 20 elements in 13 groups design which is not unusual
fro such a lens type (take a comparing Zoom-Nikkor 35-200mm f/3.5~f/4.5s MACRO introduced almost
20 years later (1986) may still demand a massive 17 elements in 13 groups optical
composition). Its close focus capability is a fair performance at 2.5m (8.5ft.) primarily
because it was not being designed to shine at close focus distance. The front lens
element is quite a large piece of optic glass, due to the lense has a rather large
diameter with its front filter attachment size of 95mm. It was essentially attributed
to the constant aperture of f/4.5 which demands it to have a larger light gathering
power with its dimension. The secondary zoom ring on the lense has various reference
markings for 50mm, 60mm, 70mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm, 200mm, 250mm and 300mm and the
distance scales are quite close where I think Nikon has specifically designed focusing
ring with a shorter rotation for quick focusing. Based on Peter Brazco's Nikon
Hand Book,
the second version of this lense could be having a starting serial number from 750101
onwards.

Peter also
addressed a subsequent version of this lense has a all matte finish version which
may has occured in 1975/6. Well, I cannot distinguish the diffiference as I scanned
from a 1976's Nikkor Sales leaflet which shows a picture almost identical to earlier
ones. However, his book mentioned the version has a starting serial number that begin
with 770401. A more viable
expnation could be the lense could have been treated with NIC at this stage.

| NEXT |
The Ai-version and the revised Zoom-Nikkor 50-300mm f/4.5 ED1/2

" ... I
wish I knew more about this lens, but frankly I have not been able to find much out
about who modified these lenses to fit on TV studio cameras in the '60s. This
one is set up for cable controls, for focus and zoom, like later Canon lenses..."
- Fred Krughoff -
<webmaster@romdog.com> creator of the
|Nikon
Historical Society|

Credit: MCLau®, who has helped to rewrite
some of the content appeared this site. Chuck Hester® who has been helping
me all along with the development of all these Nikon websites;LarsHolst Hansen, 'Hawkeye'
who shares the same passion I have; Ms Rissa, Sales manager
from Nikon Corporation Malaysia for granting permission to use some of the official
content; TedWengelaar,Holland
who
has helped to provide many useful input relating to older Nikkor lenses; Some of the references
on production serial numbers used in this site were extracted from Roland Vink's website; HiuraShinsaku from Nikomat
Club Japan. Lastly,
to all the good people who has contributed their own expeience, resources or kind
enough granted permission to use their images of their respective optic in this site.
It is also a site to remember a long
lost friend
on the Net.Note:certain content and
images appeared in this site were either scanned from official marketing leaflets
& brochures published by Nikon and/or contribution from surfers who claimed originality
of their work for educational purposes. The creator of the site will not be responsible
for may discrepancies arise from such dispute except rectifying them after verification."Nikon", "Nikkormat", "Nippon Kokagu
KK"
& "Nikkor" are registered
tradename of Nikon Corporation Inc., Japan. Site made with an Apple IMac.